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Saturday, November 20, 2010

Unlike many other early space station concepts, this design actually made it out of the concept phase and into production, though no models were ever flown. This particular station was 30-feet and expandable. It was designed to be taken to outer space in a small package and then inflate in orbit. The station could, in theory, have been big enough for 1 to 2 people to use for a long period of time. A similar 24 foot station was built by the Goodyear Aircraft Corporation for NASA test use. The concept of space inflatables was revived in the 1990s.

Something to note about building the Bigelow facility for the commercial space station. It is projected to cost $500 million to build by 2015. The International Space Station according to the GAO General Accounting Office of the United States cost $100 billion to build. That is 200x more expensive. Inflatables are far less expensive.

There is another option which is not quite an inflatable, but is interesting. There is a plan to launch Atlas rockets from a high altitude airplanes. The name of the company specifically is Stratolaunch. http://www.stratolaunch.com/

How about imagining if you could get rid of the rocket completely and just let a blimp lift cargo directly into orbit. JP Aerospace is working on a concept craft which would take an airship all the way to orbit. There is even a book called Floating to Space: The Airship to Orbit Program (Apogee Books Space Series) by John M. Powell.

A stratostation might even be useful for automated high altitude airships used for communications and radar. Sanswire is an example of this. http://www.sanswiretao.com/

You might even attempt to tether cables to the stratostation and then haul cables through the upper atmosphere to make a two stage space elevator. I have no idea if this would work, I am not an engineer. It is an idea. That is what a thought experiment is about. This is kind of an idea that probably won't work because of the physics involved.

What is your next step? Build yourself an inflatable mars ship. Link together several transhab modules in a row, build a truss system around it, add an engine in the back, and a command module in the front. Again, it is just a thought.

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